Poll Question: Who Won The Vice Presidential Debate?

On points I’d score it as a narrow win for Gov. Palin, overall on style and substance it was a landslide… She wiped the floor with both Senator Biden and moderator Gwen Ifill.

Best line: “I may not answer the questions the way that the moderator or the Senator may want me to but I will speak to America.”

She lost me with populist greed rhetoric, but I understand they’re trying to appeal to independents and/or undecided voters… But she won me back when channeled Reagan and hit Biden with that “there you go again” line.

I thought she also missed a couple of opportunities to really drive home the point that reducing the corporate tax rate will, in the long term, promote economic growth and create jobs.

Anyone who thinks Palin won is a fool. She was incoherent and rambling when she didn’t stick exclusively to the Republican Talking Points. Her analysis of what the VP job entails is scary since she clearly doesn’t get it, and she is the main reason I am now voting for Obama. The debate last night clinched it for me. There is no way I want her a heartbeat away from the presidency. She can’t even pronounce Nuclear!

Biden won the debate. He won almost every post-debate poll, and he won on substance and accuracy.

Palin did a good job of reciting her prepared answers, whether or not they were relevant to the questions asked. I suppose GOP diehards will see anything that Palin does as a win, but in the real world it is clear that Palin lost. And that’s not taking into account her unwarranted arrogance and condescension towards Biden and Obama. And her bizarre, robotic “maverick” sound bite after hearing Biden’s comments on losing his wife and daughter in a car accident.

2. ACCURACY
FactCheck.org cited twice as many false claims in Palin’s responses as in Biden’s. Even accounting for the normal cynicism about exaggerations in politics, Palin was at least twice as bad.

Palin: 10
1. “Pre-surge” troop levels in Iraq – WRONG
2. Obama voted for higher taxes on “families” making as little as $42,000 a year
3. McCain’s health care plan would be “budget neutral” – FALSE
4. Palin claimed that “millions of small businesses” would see tax increases under Obama’s tax proposals. – FALSE
5. Gen. McKiernan did not say surge principles would not work in Afghanistan – FALSE
6. Barack Obama had said that all we’re doing in Afghanistan is air-raiding villages and killing civilians. – FALSE
7. Obama-Biden oppose clean coal – FALSE
8. Palin said that McCain had sounded the alarm on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years ago. – FALSE ***
9. “We’re circulating about $700 billion a year into foreign countries” – FALSE
10. Palin threw out an old canard when she criticized Obama for voting for the 2005 energy bill and said, “that’s what gave those oil companies those big tax breaks.” – FALSE

*** See also:http://tinyurl.com/3hm7lb
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So it’s true that McCain spoke out — after a widely read report drew attention to chicanery at the firms. But the implication in McCain’s remarks is that his remarks in 2006 were in some way a warning about the financial markets disaster that struck in 2008. That strikes us as quite a stretch.
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Biden: 5
1. Biden wrongly claimed that McCain had said “he wouldn’t even sit down” with the government of Spain. – FALSE
2. Biden claimed that McCain said in a magazine article that he wanted to deregulate the health care industry as the banking industry had been. – FALSE
3. Biden said five times that McCain’s tax plan would give oil companies a “$4 billion tax cut.” – FALSE
4. Biden said that Iraq had an “$80 billion surplus.” – FALSE
5. Biden said four times that McCain had voted 20 times against funding alternative energy. – FALSE

And Jeff, while we’re reading the Constitution, note that the ONLY ‘legislative’ function of the VP is to break a tie vote in the Senate. I am curious to know where Sarah Palin found “a bit more authority” for the VP in the Constitution or why she wants to arrogate such powers to herself if it turns out (as is obvious) that they are not in the Constitution at all.

-Shepherd Moon

“BOSNIAKS FOR OBAMA-BIDEN”?

Here’s a better one: GENERAL MCCLELLAN FOR MCCAIN-PALIN
or maybe this one: PALIN FOR SENATOR O’BIDEN

I think you’ll I find that the Washington Post, LA Times and Factcheck.org got it wrong. You can find the full transcript of General McKiernan’s press conference here. The relevant parts are:

It’s not just additional boots on the ground. It’s enablers to go with them. But at the same time, I would tell you that it’s not just a question about more soldiers. It’s a question about more governance, about more economic aid, about more political assistance for the government of Afghanistan, as well as military capabilities.

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But what we need is additional military capabilities to provide security for the people in Afghanistan. And until we get to what I call a "tipping point," where the lead for security can be in the hands of the Afghan army and the Afghan police, there’s going to be a need for the international community to provide military capability.

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Q Thank you. This is actually a follow-up to Jennifer’s question. Secretary Gates last week expressed some skepticism about whether more U.S. troops were really the answer in Afghanistan. He said that the answer may be — in his mind was building up the Afghani army rather than having more U.S. troops. Is there a gap in thinking between you and the secretary?

GEN. MCKIERNAN: No, I don’t think there’s a gap at all. I think we’re totally in agreement that ultimately what we want to do — winning this campaign — is about building Afghan capacity and capability. So recently there’s been a — an international support to increase the size of the Afghan army. We need to increase the size of the Afghan police. We need to continue to reform the Afghan police. But until such time as we get to a capable Afghan security organization that can provide security for the people, there’s going to be a reliance on international forces. So I don’t think the idea is incompatible at all.

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Q General, President Karzai has spoken in recent days about the fact that he’s reached out to Mullah Omar, he’s enlisted the Saudis as mediators in that, and called on him basically to try and work to create a stable Afghanistan. How do you judge those efforts? Is that compatible with the NATO or U.S. objective, to reach out to someone who gave shelter to Osama bin Laden?

GEN. MCKIERNAN: Well, the idea of reconciliation certainly needs to be a government of Afghanistan-led effort. What I have said — as a military officer, I’ve said that the — ultimately the solution in Afghanistan is going to be a political solution, not a military solution. We’re not going to run out of bad guys there that want to do bad things in Afghanistan.

So the idea that the government of Afghanistan will take on the idea of reconciliation, I think, is appropriate, and we’ll be there to provide support within our mandate. It won’t be a military-led operation.

The principals that McKiernan outlines securing the population first, developing the indigenous security forces to take over, and "reconciliation" issues, are the exact same play book used in Iraq. There differences though and McKiernan was quite clear on them:

Q Thank you, sir. I’m wondering if any thought was being given to migrating the lessons of the Iraq Awakening to Afghanistan to get some of these tribal leaders to have their fighting forces work with you, either because it’s the right thing or just for the money, or is the situation so different that that’s not applicable?

GEN. MCKIERNAN: Well, I think the similarity is the fact that we need to leverage the tribal system in Afghanistan as was done in Iraq, as — for a community, bottom-up based approach to security and connection with the government. That part’s the same.

What I find in Afghanistan, however, is a degree of complexity in the tribal system which is much greater than what I found in Iraq years ago.

And I also find that of the over 400 major tribal networks inside of Afghanistan, they have been largely, as I said earlier, traumatized by over 30 years of war, so a lot of that traditional tribal structure has broken down.

But the question and the need to engage the tribes, to engage tribal authorities and use those values at a local level to enhance security, governance, needs of the people to be able to express grievances with the government of Afghanistan, I think, is an important concept and one that we have to continue to work in support of the government of Afghanistan.

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Q And are you considering or looking into a program that would be similar to the Sons of Iraq, where you would actually start paying some of the tribes, that the U.S. money would go to some of the tribes to get —

GEN. MCKIERNAN: No, the difference in Afghanistan is that needs to be an Afghan-led effort to engage the tribes. And there is a program called the Afghan Social Outreach Program which President Karzai is — tasked one of his ministers to lead. But one of the real differences, again, between Afghanistan and Iraq was, if you recall, Afghanistan was in the midst of a civil war when we intervened. And that potential is still there, so this needs to be an Afghan-led effort on how to engage the tribes and what the incentives are and how to use the traditional tribal authorities to help with community security and community assistance.

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Q General, a question on this concept of some sort of Afghanistan awakening.

You said that the goal in this would be getting the Afghan government to empower these local tribes. But to some extent too, when you talk to folks they say, well, this is a strategy that was to some extent rejected early on because, you know, how would this impact the central government, empowering these local tribes; would that lead to decentralization. And, I mean that gets into issues of governments, and you said you’re more of a security guy, too. So I guess the security question is, you know, would that be a security issue?

GEN. MCKIERNAN: First of all, I’ve never used the term "Afghanistan awakening." So don’t — please don’t ascribe that to me.

What I’ve said, though, is that there is a traditional tribal structure in Afghanistan out in the rural areas, and that’s 70 percent of the population. And it seems to me that with the lead of the government of Afghanistan engaging those tribes and connecting them to governance, whether it’s at the provincial level or the district level, seems to be a smart thing to do to assist with the security of a huge country. But that has to be, again, a — we are in support of the government of Afghanistan doing that. We don’t do that. ISAF doesn’t do that.

So there you have it Palin was right and Biden was wrong.

I find it interesting that Factcheck.org ignored the single biggest error of the night:

Biden: “When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, “Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know — if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.”

When exactly was that? Hezbollah has been in Lebanon since the early 1980’s and blossomed in the 1990’s to become roughly one third of Lebanon’s population, with two cabinet members, several members of parliament. They have essentially created an entirely separate government infrastructure in all of southern Lebanon.

On more amusing note I wonder when Biden last visited Katie’s Restaurant? It apparently
closed in the 1980s.

And Shepherd let me repeat this: Article 1 Section 3 says “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.” While you are correct that he or she can only vote in the event of a tie that does not change the fact that he or she is the President of the Senate. In fact the Vice President’s only enumerated executive branch role is being first in line as successor to the President should he or she become unable to serve.